For many, employee training is something that only large corporations or business actors can afford. Yet, nowadays, a structured employee training program system is essential for every growing company.
Whether you’re a local agency or tech firm, the skills of your team and partners are very valuable assets. Read on to learn more about employee training programs and whether to use a special employee training tracking software to make it smarter and more efficient.
Why Do You Need a Structured Training Program?
An employee training program is a piece of the system that can help your employees upskill. Yet, if you turn a program into a chain of programs, it’s likely to have a long-term effect affecting employee retention and productivity.
First of all, training programs help you build consistency, especially when you grow fast. A basic program can teach a person how to use software or follow a procedure.
Yet, a structured and more advanced one will prepare them to think and grow. Isn’t it what businesses want from their employees?
Besides, as training boosts employee satisfaction, the right approach to program creation can support employees’ feelings of self-worth and show that you understand their needs. Every employee wants to feel they can grow with the company. If they see that you invest in them by paying attention to training programs, the chances are they will stay for longer.
In the end, training supports and protects your business. Let’s not forget about compliance, cybersecurity, and safety programs in highly regulated industries. They are to ensure that employees make fewer or no mistakes.
How to Build a Training Program That Works
For some, building a structured employee training program seems like a big and tedious project. Especially if you plan to turn into a chain of courses. Nevertheless, it shouldn’t be. Here’s a step-by-step guide to implement the training program that can be turned into a whole system later.
#1. Make sure the business goals lead you
Before rolling out any piece, you should ask yourself: What area of performance and employee skills needs improvement?
Not answering the questions can result in falling into the trap. Which one? The trap of bringing in a generic training program, one to simply tick the box. To prevent it, you should put the goal in the center of the program and link it to the business goals.
For example, your goal can be to:
- Reduce customer churn. Then, your program will be about training the support team in communication.
- Deal with delivery delays. In this case, your program will focus on training time management in logistics.
- Improve team communication. This program will focus on communication and such soft skills as empathy in the workplace.
In any case, you’ll need to ensure that the goals are specific and measurable. For this, you can use one of the following frameworks: OKR, SMART, KPIs.
Don’t forget to link the objectives to the business metrics and use training tracking software for collecting results. At that stage of the employee training program, you can focus on the following questions:
- Are people finishing the training?
- Are their performance metrics improving?
- Do they feel more confident in their roles?
#2. Identify Skill Gaps
Once you know the issue, you need to find out which skills should be improved to solve the issue. For this, you will need to collect data from your employees. How?
- Run short surveys
- Do one-on-one check-ins.
- Ask team leads for input.
If you’re an owner or manager in a small company, you probably already have a sense of who needs what. Yet, in a medium-sized business, putting the gaps in writing or creating a system will help you spot patterns and prioritize which gaps to fill first.
#3. Find the format that suits you
An effective training program depends on many factors. One of them is format. Long seminars can be tedious, intensive courses can bring stress, but microlearning happens to be effective in the long term. Sure, you can mix formats to keep programs fresh and flexible.
Yet, what are the most popular formats regarding employee training?
- On-the-job training. It involves letting employees learn by doing under mentorship or by shadowing.
- Online learning modules. It’s one of the most popular ones. Under it, you build modules for teams and individuals to complete remotely or on their own.
- Workshops or webinars. They are ideal for team training and product training.
- Peer learning. Use it when you have an experienced employee to share much about the topic.
- Short videos. It’s a great format to support knowledge sharing and ensure knowledge retention.
#4. Use the Right Tools
Next, for employee program creation, you will need some tools. Even though for small teams, a PowerPoint or Notion page may be enough, a structured program for more people would need more complicated software.
Using the employee training tools can help you stay organized, especially as your team grows. For intance, for larger teams, if you want to support compliance and see the actual impact, you will need an LMS with a training tracker. Moreover, for different departments or partners, it should have multi-tenant support. It’s a must-have feature for any partner training software.
Yet, if your needs don’t require a centralized system, you can focus on such tools as Notion or Nuclino for knowledge sharing and management.
In regard to workshops, resort to Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Yet, if you think of a large event, you can resort to Discord or Hopin.
Tip. Pick tools that your team already knows, as it will make the training program much easier for them.
#5. Avoid one-and-done approach
Lastly, the best training programs don’t stop after onboarding or teaching a new skill. It’s in your best interest that a program will be the beginning of a learning culture.
So, make sure your program supports or comes in line with such initiatives:
- Monthly “learning hours” or team skill shares.
- Feedback options and possibilities of external courses.
- Aligning the learning goals with performance goals.
In the end, as your business evolves, your training should too. With more employees, you will need more resources and more content. Thus, don’t hesitate to use peer learning and invite employees to contribute to your programs.
Wrapping up
At the end of the day, a structured employee training program is a brick of a great L&D strategy. If your training has a structured program at the center, you will boost productivity, reduce turnover, and create a team that’s ready to take on challenges.
To have an effective training program, use data and link learning and business goals, build with intention and needs in mind, and keep the learning going.
